


insufficiency of explanations

by Pericardiaca



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Blood, Cutting, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Depression, EXPLICIT SELF HARM, F/M, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Mental Breakdown, Mental Health Issues, Mental Instability, Self-Harm, Suicide Attempt, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Has Issues, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Whump, like seriously lads this is NOT healthy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-05
Updated: 2017-12-05
Packaged: 2019-02-11 03:43:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12926637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pericardiaca/pseuds/Pericardiaca
Summary: A few moments in Tony's world. He self-harms.Please read the tags. This is seriously fucked up.





	insufficiency of explanations

**Author's Note:**

> **Please heed the trigger warnings.**

He couldn't remember when it started. If it was a dull feeling at first, settling on his soul just like that cotton-on-ears feeling after a good concert. Or if it just hit him; one day everything fine and the next... not. 

It doesn't matter anyway. Haven't you ever thought how weird it is that people always look back to their beginnings when they're close to an end? Tony has, but what his thoughts tell him isn't very reliable anymore so maybe it's a normal processing thing. 

Tony was cold. His fingers were almost as numb as his soul when he leaned back against the wall of his workshop. He had turned the lights off, only a few computer screens and holograms lighting the room up in an eerie blue. But Tony didn't pay it any attention, he closed his eyes against it and slowly sat down on the floor, hugging his knees to his chest. 

His fingers were trembling and Tony's thoughts zipped to the bottle of vodka in his fridge but the memory of throwing up into his sink was still too fresh. In the desperate search of a distraction he took his phone out and scrolled through his conversations. 

"Love you", it said in the last message from Rhodey. Tony couldn't even remember when he had received it; his vision getting too blurry with tears so he didn't bother to try to read the date either. He missed Rhodey.

Leaning his head back against the wall, the phone slipping out of his hand and thumped onto the floor. 

"Don't, Tony. No. Keep breathing", he said out loud, but his voice broke. He could feel the wetness of a tear creeping out of the corner of his eye, slowly sliding down his cheek into his beard but he couldn't muster the energy to wipe it away. 

It wasn't as if that tear meant anything. 

As if anyone cared if he cried. 

He was just having an exhausted moment; one of the many many moments his exhaustion had ripped from him. A thought flickered to all the useful things he could be doing right now; working, mainly. But his work had never done any good anyway. 

He conjured up the image of Jimmy, the soldier who had been sitting next to him when the convoy got attacked in Afghanistan. Yinsen was next, laying dead in front of him and Tony slowly but surely made his way through his worst fuck ups: The years where he broke down until there was nothing left but dust. 

Every single memory clear as if he was living the moment right now in front of his inner eye (sharp and stinging like alcohol on an open wound).

All the times people had gotten hurt because of him. Because his worthless life was taking up space and air and he kept trying, he kept trying to do something right, anything. It was fruitless though, there was nothing left for him. It didn't matter if the Iron Man suit helped, if his tech helped the Avengers (or what was left of them), it didn't even matter if Stark Industries could provide anything of value for the people. 

Tony let himself fall to the side, his right shoulder touching the floor and his face pressing into the concrete, his breath coming in short gasps. 

He wished desperately for a moment of normalcy. A normal job, normal friends, a normal significant other, normal parents, a normal family. (Whatever.) Just something that other people had as well so he wouldn't be so goddamn alone in this world. 

Tony didn't think a lot of people have experienced true loneliness and he didn't think that what he himself experienced was true loneliness either. But when you're sitting on your bed, the only noise the clock ticking on the wall and you're waiting for the day to pass so you can go back to sleep because you have nothing to do, nothing to live for, nothing worth getting up, then you're getting pretty close.

Once again it was only him and his heart beat, thumping against his abused chest with tearing finalty. Maybe in the next life, he thought, maybe he'd get a chance at a normal life there. Not that that word meant anything, not to Tony, at least. 

For him it was the norm to wake up screaming from dreams where he got sucked into wormholes. Where he got decapitated by supersoldiers. Where he saw his mother die over and over and over. Where Pepper fell into a fire wall, where Rhodey fell out of the sky, where he was helpless and useless and nothing.  
It would have been better for everyone had he never been born. His father wouldn't have hated him, he couldn't have disappointed the world, hurt people. Innocent people. 

Tony raised his head a little and let it fall back against the floor, repeating the movement a few times. It was a desperate try to silence the swirling thoughts; to escape the walls of his own consciousness that were closing in on him (tighter, tighter). 

He didn't want to think about his life anymore, it was just a mess of nothing. 

With nimble fingers he grabbed his phone again and scrolled through the list of people named "Fuck 1", "Fuck 2" and so on. It wasn't a consistent row of numbers, sometimes several in a row missing, sometimes the same number divided by added on letters again. None of the attached photos called to him though, he didn't want to anyway. While it by far wouldn't be the first time for him to have sex just to do something (just to maybe silence his brain for a moment) when he in reality didn't even want to get touched. 

Tony felt too dirty right now. He rubbed his palms against his jeans, almost expecting to smear blood all over them. 

He looked at a particularly bright hologram and a need shot through him, into his veins, screaming for him to open them up. "FRIDAY, invert the colours", he commanded and his AI did so without a comment. Tony started at the dirty brown-ish red colour and immediately knew that it was a really bad day. One of those where he had to see his blood. 

He could feel it with every breath he took, it's like breathing in some toxic gas and it settles in your brain, fogs you up until you forget why self-harming is stupid and won't help. 

For a second Tony's rationality kicked back in and he checked the time stamp for Pepper's last online activity but it had been hours since she had even checked her mails. A sliver of worry managed to break through his panic attack but then he remembered that she had mentioned a girl's night or a date or something else humans did. 

She didn't have time for Tony, she didn't need an interruption of a fun and enjoyable evening by Tony's crying self that was holding a scalpel in one hand and the disinfectant in the other. (He would never cut himself with something dirty.) 

See, this is why Tony thought that 'jealous' was the wrong word for what he was feeling. Of course he wanted Pepper's attention and of course he knew that he was getting less of it now that she wasn't his girlfriend, not his personal assistant anymore. But what is far more important is that she is happy. 

Tony realised he was still holding his phone in his hands and before he could drop it again, he threw it in a sudden bout of aggression through the work shop; sending it flying into a screen. There was no one he could call anyway. Peter? Fuck no, didn't deserve his disgusting fucked up mistakes. Natasha? No, didn't care enough, would be awkward. Bruce? Nope, never called him before in a situation like this. Clint? T'Challa? Erm, certainly not. Steve? Fuck bitch never ever. 

Tony got up with surprising ease and went to his bathroom because he didn't want to make a mess. One spray of disinfection, cotton pad to clean it, another spray, wait until dry. Same procedure with the scalpel. It's a sterile one, but he's used it before so... it's not sterile anymore. Post-sterile, basically. 

"FRIDAY, black out", Tony said calmly. 

This was the best moment. The calm when his fingers stop shaking and suddenly his brain speeds up (in the good way, like it used to). Then, take the scalpel and put it softly onto your skin on the part of your body you've decided for. Tony used his ankle, mostly. He couldn't risk someone seeing scars on his forearms and his chest was already a mess. 

The next part is the most difficult one because of Tony's goal: If you cut too deep, you get a real wound that might even need stitches and that's going to scar badly. If you cut just through the top layer of skin, you might not get enough blood for the effect. 

Tony wants to see that he's alive. 

That there's something left inside of him that can feel and fight (and try to be better the next time) and there is no better way than blood dripping down his leg because that's what's supposed to happen to super heros in fights. Light cuts and smeared blood. Tony was no hero but he could pretend to be one when there was liquid proof that he had a heart all over him, right?

He never got the pressure right at the first cut, always too light. But then the next and the next and then he had to put the blade away before he did something dumb because fuck, it feels good. 

Quickly another spray of disinfection and then onto the really good part. 

Tony cleaned up the bathroom with practised movements before he walked over to the balcony, barefoot and with his jeans rolled up. It was dark and cool but Tony didn't feel the cold anymore when he stood there, feeling the blood drop down his legs. 

It was raining lightly and Tony felt the wind on his body and the rain turned the bordeaux a soft pink on his leg. 

He closed his eyes and breathed New York in, listening to the sound of the drizzle against the glass of the windows next to him. Almost therapeutic, he thought and a weird dizziness surged through him. Tony had to grip the railing of the balcony when he realised that the blurriness wasn't due to rain on glasses or his HUD.

His immediate panic attack had a low at this point and he turned around, walking back inside to look out into the rain through the balcony windows. 

Tony swallowed and tried to hold onto the woollen feeling in his head; looking down at his body. Suddenly he leaned down and dipped his finger into the half-dried blood. He looked at it; finally his hands were drenched in blood like they were supposed to look like all the time. The metallic smell of his blood reminded him of his suit. Wasn't it irony that Iron Man's blood smelled of actual iron? Tony stepped closer to the window and raised his hand, resting his bloody finger against the cool glass. 

He spelled 'kill yourself'.

The f was a little lighter than the rest, his blood finally drying up and the wound starting to close. 

Tony knew he should go and put disinfectant and bandages on it to keep it clean but what did it matter. Maybe it would get infected and he'd die from it. It would be a way to go; he'd forever regret that he hadn't taken the opening Afghanistan had given him. Such an easy way out and Tony had been stupid enough to make everything worse. And then again and again, always getting out of it. As if someone wanted to torture him by keeping him alive, by denying him the merciful death of a soldier on the battlefield. 

Not that he was a soldier. 

Tony's thoughts flickered to Steve. It hurt, it hurt so much more than the wound on his ankle, he had tried to get over Steve out so many times; he cut the thoughts off (cut them off like he had cut through his skin). 

A strong wind gust blew the balcony door open and Tony looked out into the rain again. It had become stronger, the thick drops were still falling softly though and they looked beautiful when they ran down the glass window; right on the other side of the bloodied words. 

"Kill yourself", Tony said, his voice hollow. It was possible he hadn't even said it, only thought. 

There was no last glance back, Tony just stepped out into the rain and felt his shirt and the jeans drench. The cold water seeped onto his skin and he shuddered against his will. He looked at the nightly lights of New York for long moments before he jumped and swung his legs over the railing. His arm caught on the balcony, seemingly giving him the chance to hold onto it again but Tony didn't try. He just let go and closed his eyes. 

An inner calm came over him as the wind rushed past his body, cutting into wound on his leg and into his face. Tony calculated if the wind of his fall was enough to sweep the evaporation of his tears and the rain drops on his face away. It was a sweet moment, his brain flooded with adrenaline and calm. Formulas and fog. Tony wanted to hold onto it forever (no time, nothing could reach him) but even now Tony couldn't help himself, he knew it would be over any moment now. He closed his eyes. 

The hard touch on his body shook him, the abrupt stop making him choke the air out of his lungs. 

Then the familiar casing of the Iron Man armour held him tight and secure. 

Tony could feel the tears running over his face even though his eyes were still closed.


End file.
